He was, but didn’t know it until grief and anger pushed him beyond what he thought his limits were.
Kryptonian physiology isn’t really clear in the movies, and it’s barely given hand waves in the comics. But humans are often unaware of what their real limits are. Until we get hit with a strong emotion that bypasses our conscious minds and spurs us into action.
Supes, while extremely powerful, hadn’t faced that kind of loss at that scale before (in the movie at least). He might never have seriously tested his limits (and didn’t on screen), and may even have been scared to test his limits
Remember, supes, Clark, grew up hiding his powers, they made him different in a bad way as much as good way. Why wouldn’t he fear discovering even greater power than he thought he had?
So, whatever the equivalent of adrenaline and cortisol kryptonians have could have been the catalyst. He holds himself to a lesser power all the time because he wants to be as human as he can be. When the chemicals get dumped into his bloodstream, while his mind is reeling with grief, that self inhibition gets abandoned.
There’s even an argument to be made that when he took off, he wasn’t planning to change time, he was trying to escape his perceived failure, running to a way to avoid the grief and pain. With that, he unconsciously flees to the one direction that could give him relief, backwards in time.
Now, it’s obvious the writers meant him to be doing it on purpose, but it’s never outright said to be the case, so we can graft head canon on fairly freely.
But, even if it was clear he was intentionally time travelling (or just reversing time for earth only), that would be a power he would carefully and cautiously use. For him to have know he could do it implies he had done it before, at least once. So, supes being a fairly smart dude, but would be unlikely to tamper with causality casually. Then, with that being the case, him resetting events immediately after they happened, in a moment of grief and anger makes more sense. He was being driven to the extreme and chose to use his most dangerous power because the death toll was just too high.
So, even if we take the writer’s events that way, supes would still have had good reason to not go too fast in the initial attempt, because of the risk of it. He would have had to reach similar speeds to have caught the rocket on the first go, risking greater harm. So, he doesn’t, but the consequences of that choice hit him hard, and he abandons his restraint to save those he loves, and the world.
I liked Smallville for showing Clark gradually learning how to be Superman. I, too, like the idea that he’s got no idea how powerful he can become.
Someone once wrote that the dream fight between Superman and the Hulk would be Hulk hitting Supes and Supes shrugs it off. Hulk gets mad and hits him so hard there’s an earthquake, but Superman still isn’t mussed. Now Hulk winds up and we see Supes flying past the Moon.
If I had the chance, I’d make Clark a sickly kid who was always having major problems. In my version, it would take a Kryptonian a long time to successfully adapt to Earth. It would be nice to see Clark going to school in a wheelchair, and then gaining his powers slowly as an adult. If and when we bring in Phantom Zone villains we can either say the Zone ‘empowered’ them, or give them a different set of superpowers.
And yes, I’ve spent way too long thinking about this. lol!
My head canon:
He was, but didn’t know it until grief and anger pushed him beyond what he thought his limits were.
Kryptonian physiology isn’t really clear in the movies, and it’s barely given hand waves in the comics. But humans are often unaware of what their real limits are. Until we get hit with a strong emotion that bypasses our conscious minds and spurs us into action.
Supes, while extremely powerful, hadn’t faced that kind of loss at that scale before (in the movie at least). He might never have seriously tested his limits (and didn’t on screen), and may even have been scared to test his limits
Remember, supes, Clark, grew up hiding his powers, they made him different in a bad way as much as good way. Why wouldn’t he fear discovering even greater power than he thought he had?
So, whatever the equivalent of adrenaline and cortisol kryptonians have could have been the catalyst. He holds himself to a lesser power all the time because he wants to be as human as he can be. When the chemicals get dumped into his bloodstream, while his mind is reeling with grief, that self inhibition gets abandoned.
There’s even an argument to be made that when he took off, he wasn’t planning to change time, he was trying to escape his perceived failure, running to a way to avoid the grief and pain. With that, he unconsciously flees to the one direction that could give him relief, backwards in time.
Now, it’s obvious the writers meant him to be doing it on purpose, but it’s never outright said to be the case, so we can graft head canon on fairly freely.
But, even if it was clear he was intentionally time travelling (or just reversing time for earth only), that would be a power he would carefully and cautiously use. For him to have know he could do it implies he had done it before, at least once. So, supes being a fairly smart dude, but would be unlikely to tamper with causality casually. Then, with that being the case, him resetting events immediately after they happened, in a moment of grief and anger makes more sense. He was being driven to the extreme and chose to use his most dangerous power because the death toll was just too high.
So, even if we take the writer’s events that way, supes would still have had good reason to not go too fast in the initial attempt, because of the risk of it. He would have had to reach similar speeds to have caught the rocket on the first go, risking greater harm. So, he doesn’t, but the consequences of that choice hit him hard, and he abandons his restraint to save those he loves, and the world.
Grape minds drink alike?
I liked Smallville for showing Clark gradually learning how to be Superman. I, too, like the idea that he’s got no idea how powerful he can become.
Someone once wrote that the dream fight between Superman and the Hulk would be Hulk hitting Supes and Supes shrugs it off. Hulk gets mad and hits him so hard there’s an earthquake, but Superman still isn’t mussed. Now Hulk winds up and we see Supes flying past the Moon.
Yeah, that was one of the best parts of the show :)
They really managed that well
If I had the chance, I’d make Clark a sickly kid who was always having major problems. In my version, it would take a Kryptonian a long time to successfully adapt to Earth. It would be nice to see Clark going to school in a wheelchair, and then gaining his powers slowly as an adult. If and when we bring in Phantom Zone villains we can either say the Zone ‘empowered’ them, or give them a different set of superpowers.
And yes, I’ve spent way too long thinking about this. lol!